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Columbus’ 2013 budget is about making sure the city never again has to consider laying off
police officers and firefighters in a recession, Mayor Michael B. Coleman said.

Coleman will propose a spending plan today designed to make good on his promises to taxpayers
to increase the city’s reserves and create more jobs a year ahead of schedule.

In 2009, after voters approved increasing the city income tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent,
Coleman and other city leaders promised that they would build the city’s rainy-day fund back to
$50million by 2014, cut spending on pensions and health care and continue to grow jobs.

Coleman’s plan would boost the rainy-day fund to $50 million in 2013, a year early, and he
also is recommending that the city’s savings eventually grow to $75 million.

“This budget is about fulfilling all these promises,” Coleman said. “In 2009, we were about
to write our last check out of the rainy-day fund for the remaining $15 million just to pay the
bills, and so we went to the voters and they bought in.”

Coleman is proposing a budget of $766 million for 2013, nearly $28 million — or 3.7 percent —
more than was budgeted for 2012. As in 2012, the budget will dedicate 70percent to the police and
fire divisions. The 2013 number also includes $10 million in payments to the rainy-day fund.

The 2013 budget is meant to achieve four goals, Coleman said:

Increase stability by socking away money in the rainy-day fund and increasing the cap to $75
million. The rainy-day fund is a key factor among the three agencies that set bond ratings for
municipalities. The higher the bond rating, the lower the interest rate. Columbus has the highest
possible rating with all three credit agencies.

Improve the quality of life by providing more services such as recycling that benefit the
entire community.

Dedicate the necessary resources to public safety to continue to reduce the city’s crime
rate.

Create jobs. The city’s unemployment rate peaked at just more than 9 percent in January 2010
and was less than 6 percent in September. Coleman said he wants to continue to chip away at that
number.

Coleman also wants to make Columbus a place where people want to live, which he said is
impossible without achieving the four goals.

The city is on track to spend $12 million less this year than the $738.5 million originally
budgeted. The savings are mostly from employee attrition, said Paul Rakosky, the city’s finance
director.

The city spent about $695.5million in 2011 from its general fund. The general fund pays
salaries, benefits and other operating costs for most city agencies. A separate capital budget for
construction, vehicles and other expenses for things expected to last more than five years will go
before the council later next year.

The general-fund budget increases each year largely are tied to wage increases, the rising
costs of fuel and materials, and putting money in reserves, city officials said.

The city has weathered the nation’s financial crisis not only by cutting nearly 1,100 city
jobs in the past decade, when the city’s population grew by 12 percent, but also by negotiating
reductions in employee health-care and pension costs by a projected $210 million through 2019.

The pension and health-care savings come mostly from eliminating pension pickups for new
hires and phasing them out for existing employees.

All those things, Coleman said, helped the city emerge from the recession and absorb nearly
$30 million state cuts.

“I have been the mayor through the worst times in 2008 and 2009, and there were many
sleepless nights because I had to lay people off because we couldn’t afford to keep them here,” he
said. “We never want to go back there, and we know down the road a mayor will have to deal with an
economic recession. And I want the city to be prepared to deal with that because that was my
promise to taxpayers.”

Coleman will lay out his full budget proposal in greater detail 11 a.m. on Thursday at City
Hall.

The City Council will review the budget, hold hearings and likely make amendments. The
council typically adopts the budget in early February.